


In a New York Minute

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Series: Fathers' Day [2]
Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Adoption, Child Abandonment, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Drug Use, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: This story is a sequel to one of my Yuletide fics, Fathers’ Day, and based on Ewan McGregor’s famous Tweet about Curt and Arthur ending up together happily ever after sober and with kids.





	In a New York Minute

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr. The source material for this, i.e., Ewan's Tweet, explains why it and the rest of this series are so saccharine; I hope the tone isn't too unbelievable for the canon.

 

“Don’t give him that,” Arthur says, scandalized, before Curt can pop a bite of street vendor pretzel into Matthew’s mouth.

“Why?” Curt asks.

“It - can’t be good for such a young kid,” Arthur replies. He hopes Curt won’t press him further, without expecting to be that lucky.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. It’s all salt and oil and – I’m not sure, exactly. _I_ don’t even eat those.”

Curt snorts. “More for me and my son. And you just described popcorn, and I know you eat that no problem.”

Matthew gives a cry of impatience, and Curt makes a gentle, shushing sound, then feeds him a shred of soft pretzel. Arthur purses his lips.

“Oh, come on,” Curt says, raising Matthew a little higher in his arms. “It’s soft. It’s like bread, except salty, and it’s part of the New York experience.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Don’t I know it – and the first time I had one, I puked it up all over myself and the guy whose pants I was trying to get into. Never had one since.”

“Well, that’s not normal,” Curt says. Arthur can see Curt’s eyes shining with curiosity, and wishes he’d kept his mouth shut.

“Yeah, it probably wasn’t ‘normal’,” Arthur agrees.

“Come on. You can’t leave me hanging like that. I need the rest of the story.”

Arthur gives an exaggerated sigh. “If I tell you, you’ll stop feeding that rubbish to _our_ son?”

In answer, Curt crams the rest of the pretzel into his mouth, managing Matthew one-handed. Arthur bites his tongue: he’s tempted to complain that Curt’s going to drop the baby, but they turn the corner toward their apartment without incident.

“Fine,” Arthur says. His face is already warming; he looks down at the plastic shopping bag in his hand. “It’s an awfully long story for a pretzel, though.”

“Go ahead. I can’t believe anyone doesn't like those things.”

“All right, so the one time I had one, I'd only been in town and in America for a few months, and I managed to get sick with this awful cold. I was completely alone –”

“Yeah,” Curt says, harshly, “’cause the guy you moved here for dumped you.”

“I didn’t move here for him; I’ve told you that. I wanted a fresh start for a lot of reasons.”

Simon had been his boyfriend at the time, Simon Perry, the American travel writer Arthur had met in London and who was _one_ of the factors that had lured Arthur to New York. He hadn’t expected them to live happily ever after, but he hadn’t expected to be dumped that fast, either.

Matthew interrupts him with another shrill cry. Curt jiggles him in his arms, and murmurs, “I’m sorry, kid; we’re out of pretzel. Your other dad’s getting real strict.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not good for him,” Arthur insists, watching Matthew’s response. The little boy seems not to be listening to Curt – or to Arthur – but he rubs his eyes with his tiny hands, clumsily. “The kid needs sleep.”

“I know.” Curt rubs Matthew’s back. “I still want to hear your story, though. You’re not getting off that easy.”

Arthur worries at his lip, but doesn’t see a way out.

“So, I’m alone in a new city, I’m freelancing, which means I’m broke, and I’m so sick that I can’t eat for three or four days. I don’t think I wanted anything except tea and maybe some canned soup. My throat was so bad I couldn’t swallow for days.”

He sees the smile pulling at Curt’s mouth. It’s almost a leer.

“Shut it – there’s a kid present.”

Curt laughs. “I don’t think he gives a shit, but okay – and I still don’t see why I can’t feed New York street food to _my_ son.”

“Let me finish,” Arthur says. “You need the – the backstory to understand what happens next, when I finally start to feel better. Naturally, my first priority is to go out to a bar and try to get laid, which I almost did. I met this bloke; he was really good looking –” Arthur can still see his face – “and he seemed nice. We both had a few drinks. When we left to go back to his place, he said we should get something to eat and, well.” Arthur shrugs. “He got one of those pretzels from a cart and I got one, too, because I was starving and it seemed so harmless, and like such a part of the New York experience. I think I still had half of it in my hand when I threw up the first half.”

“All over your trick?” Curt asks. He leans Matthew’s head against his shoulder and adjusts his grip on the child so he can slip a toothpick between his teeth. The toothpicks are one of the tricks Curt has tried to control his cigarette cravings, now that he is trying to adopt Matthew, whom he thought, at first, was his own child. The toothpicks are more promising than the elastic bands Curt tried wearing around his wrist, which proved too hazardous with a baby around.

“No: I staggered away from him, and threw up all over myself and the sidewalk, like some loser kid who couldn’t hold my liquor.”

“And the guy you were with – let me guess. He ran off into the night, leaving you to blame pretzels forever after?”

Arthur shakes his head, ruefully.

“He was actually pretty – chivalrous – a real Samaritan. He got a cab and helped me back to my flat in one piece, without throwing up anymore.”

“Boyfriend material,” Curt remarks.

“I think he thought I was going to black out on the sidewalk. And he did run off afterward. I realized the next day that I had showered and gone to bed without locking the door.” He bites down on his lip. “He couldn’t lock it, and I was - I didn’t notice.”

“Okay, maybe not boyfriend material. Not that you got to find out.”

“I wanted to die of shame the whole night. Into the next day, too.” Arthur remembers sitting in the shower stall after that humiliating incident, too weak to stand, but too proud to go to sleep with the smell of vomit still clinging to him. He’d been in worse shape sometimes during his glam groupie days, when he experimented with a lot of drugs he would not do now and a few that he might, if he and Curt – Curt, of all people! – hadn’t had to go all respectable. But for a brief moment in the 1970's, Arthur hadn’t been so _alone_ , which made all the difference. He hadn’t thought of that consciously during his first flu in New York and his disastrous attempt at hooking up after, but it must have motivated him subconsciously, at least. The young man he’d picked up was kinder and more helpful under the circumstances than Arthur had any right to expect; he didn’t hold anything against him, but the loneliness in his tiny flat, with nothing but some insects on the bathroom floor for company (disgusting – he found the strength to scramble up after seeing one crawl by his foot) was pathetic.

Matthew sniffles. Curt jiggles him some more, making comforting sounds.

“Is he all right?” Arthur asks. Matthew’s still rubbing at his eyes with his hands, in between sniffling and crying.

“The kid needs his nap,” Curt says. “Matt, go to sleep. You love sleeping when people walk around with you.”

“He doesn’t sleep any other way,” Arthur adds, which is not much of an exaggeration. Matthew’s sniffles quiet somewhat, to Arthur’s relief.

“Anyway,” Curt says, to Arthur, “your barfing in front of the gay bar story? If it was me, that wouldn’t even crack the top fifty most embarrassing moments of my life. Hell, I don’t know if it would crack the top hundred, so don’t feel bad.”

“Same, probably, but I wanted a fresh start here. I don’t know why I didn’t get a proper meal first, except that I might have been too broke to afford food _and_ drinks, and the chance to get laid was more important.”

“Solid priorities.”

“Well, I didn’t get laid, and I never saw that guy again. And I was out a shirt and a pair of jeans, too. I haven’t trusted those stupid pretzels since.”

“See, I still think that part’s overreacting,” Curt remarks. “You took a risk, and it _could_ have paid off. It just didn’t that time. And you probably would have puked up anything you ate that day – night – whatever. You had way more problems than the pretzel. You must have been shit-faced from drinking something that would normally just get you a bit buzzed ‘cause you weren’t eating.”

“Probably,” Arthur agrees. “But I still don’t like those pretzel things. And if Matthew pukes it up, I think it’s fair for you to clean up the mess, since I asked you not to give him that rubbish.”

“It was one bite,” Curt protests, cuddling Matthew closer. “How bad can it be?”

“Bad. Salt’s not good for babies; their organs and things are still developing. I was _telling_ you that after reading all those parenting books.”

They reach the door of their apartment building, which they’ve only been in for two months, and which they haven’t finished unpacking. Their previous place was too small, with Matthew living with them indefinitely since that night his mum called and misled Curt into thinking that he was the father. Arthur almost wished he was. They were both attached to the kid now, and it would be easier to keep him if Curt was the biological father, though they had realized that wasn’t the case when Curt first brought Matthew to a doctor. Matt, as Curt called him, was a few months younger than they’d realized – too young to be Curt’s. The news was a shock to Curt, who had kept putting off the DNA test and eased into thinking of Matthew as his own. Arthur, who’d had a feeling that wasn’t really the case and that things wouldn’t be that simple, didn’t have the heart to say that he’d told Curt so.

“You know, we can switch,” Arthur says, unlocking the front door, and indicating the bag of groceries he’s holding with one hand. He slips his keys into his pocket. “I think he weighs more than two boxes of cereal, and I want to hold him for a bit.”

He hates seeing Curt struggle for breath walking up the stairs to their place, and carrying Matthew can be taxing for him. Curt eyes Arthur suspiciously.

“Don’t wake him.”

“I won’t – in case you haven’t noticed, he sleeps very well if someone’s walking around holding him. Here.”  

Curt lets Arthur take Matthew from him, then takes the groceries from Arthur’s hand. Arthur holds Matthew tight against his chest, pleased that the boy hasn’t woken: he was more concerned than he let on.

“We should get a stroller,” he says, “even if we don’t know how long we can keep him, or what.”

“Well, no one else gives a shit about him,” Curt says, biting hard on the toothpick in his mouth. “His real dad could have skipped town or gone to jail or died of an overdose, and his mom asks me for money whenever I call, ‘cause that’s where she’s at.”

It had taken nearly two months for Matthew’s mother to admit she’d misled Curt. Arthur had some choice words he’d wanted to say in response to her request for money, but he’d restrained himself. It was Curt, not him, who knew her, had been friends with her and slept with her, and _might_ have fathered her child, if Matthew were a few months older: let Curt deal with her. Besides, Curt had been in her shoes, more or less. Arthur had no business making light of drug addiction, no matter how little sympathy he had for parents who abandoned their kids.

“You’re so good with him,” Curt adds. “I hate to sound like I’m aping straight people out in the suburbs, but if they let me adopt Matt, you know that means I can never break up with you. He’d miss you too much.”

The thought is sweet, but Arthur can’t see any court letting Curt keep Matthew, especially not when Curt and Arthur are living together. He’s afraid it won’t matter how kind Curt is to the child. But he might be wrong. Maybe it will count for something that Curt thought he was the real father, and has tried to act like one. He hopes so. At this point, he’d hate to see Matthew back with his neglectful mother, or with some straight foster family the kid has never seen before.

“If he even _remembered_ me.”

“I bet he would.”

“My plan all along, then,” Arthur quips, pushing away his pessimism with an effort. “Let’s have a baby; it’ll keep us together.”

Curt’s face shines. He leans in, putting a hand on Arthur’s elbow and pressing Arthur against the wall of the stairwell to kiss him. Arthur breaks the kiss and glances around, instinctively, though he knows they live in as safe a place as they could hope for.

“Wait until we’re home, okay? You said two minutes ago that you didn’t want Matt to wake up; we shouldn’t jostle him around by accident.”

“Fine.”  

Arthur looks down at Matthew’s face – still fast asleep – and mounts the first flight of stairs to the landing.

“A building with a lift – elevator –”

“I know what you mean -”

“Well, a lift would be better if we got a stroller; the stairs will be a right pain in the arse, but everything else would be much easier. I think it’s worth looking into.”

“He might prefer to be carried, and kick and scream if he’s not,” Curt points out.

“I know. It’s surprising that he’s not actually your son, when you put it like that,” Arthur says. “We could find a store with a return policy.”

“I’m not sure where you’d get a stroller,” Curt admits.

“Department store – although it’d be damned embarrassing, like buying those parenting books. I think that moment rounds out the top fifty most embarrassing of my life.”

“Yeah,” Curt mutters, “tell me again how bad it was going to a nice, clean bookstore and shopping while I was at home with a screaming baby and shitty diapers to change.”

“You were home with this adorable kid when I nearly had to out myself to some thick-headed teenager who couldn’t take a hint and wouldn’t shut up. I’m telling you, the assumptions people make…”

“So I should have been with you to disabuse people of their assumptions.”

Maybe he should have. Curt would have dealt with the situation more quickly and dramatically than Arthur had, although it didn’t matter anymore. He glances at Curt, who doesn’t appear short of breath yet. _Good._

“Also,” Curt says, “this is random, but you know that sweater you have? The grey one with the stripes, that always makes me call you Grandpa when you wear it?”

It’s a strange turn for the conversation to take, but not out of line for Curt to change the subject suddenly and impulsively, or to tease Arthur about his fashion sense. Arthur nods.

“What about it?”

“Don’t wear it tomorrow. I’m wearing it to meet with this lawyer, ‘cause I want something more – normal. More down-to-earth, middle-class journalist, like, and less – you know – rock musician and ex-heroin addict and godfather of punk.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow at Curt, who shrugs, sweetly, and says, “Don’t say anything.”

It’s not like Curt to want to be anything less than authentic. Arthur knows that, and knows what a sacrifice it must be for Curt to act or even dress less like himself – less like _Curt Wild_ – and more like some ordinary, respectable, and presumably heterosexual dad from a suburb – the nightmare he’d invoked earlier. Arthur wants to squeeze Curt’s hand, except that he’s holding Matthew. He tries to make a joke of it instead. After all, Curt has handed him the opportunity.

“Oh, I _will_ say something,” Arthur counters, “especially after you wormed such an embarrassing story out of me. I’m glad you’re seeing a lawyer about Matthew, and it’s great that you’re thinking of details like that, but I get to call you Grandpa.”

Curt pouts at him. Arthur doesn’t relent.

“And I’m taking a picture.”

“I’m hiding the camera,” Curt says.

“Don’t you dare. I’ll be nice; you can be the punk rock grandpa.” Arthur might write that as a caption on the Polaroid he’ll snap, if Curt doesn’t change too quickly.

“Well, it _is_ the kind of thing someone’s grandpa would wear.” Curt’s eyes meet Arthur’s, and he gnaws on the toothpick between his lips, his jaw tightening. “I just don’t know what – what role to play tomorrow. I mean, I have to pretend I’m the sanest person in this kid’s life, which is pretty fucked up…”

“You _are_ the sanest person in his life – that we know of, and that he knows of.”

“No, I’m not. You are.”

“Not much of an improvement,” Arthur says. It’s a sobering thought with no easy answer, and they make their way up to their floor in silence.

“Can you get the door?” Arthur asks when they reach their flat. “A stroller _would_ make our lives easier.”

“Fine,” Curt replies. “Forgot my keys, though.”

He slips his hand into Arthur’s back pocket, his fingers grasping Arthur’s key chain, and lingering, stroking Arthur’s arse through the fabric of his jeans. Arthur tenses, his skin tingling. He would prefer it if he weren’t standing outside their door holding a baby.

“I’m not complaining, but did you _really_ forget your keys?”

“Yeah, I think I left them on the table.”

Curt moves his fingers up to stroke the small of Arthur’s back. Then he withdraws his hand and opens the door, briskly.

“Come on. Think we can get Matt into his crib without waking him?”

Arthur looks down at Matthew’s sleeping face, and wishes he had a tissue to wipe away some drool from the child’s lip. “I think he’ll be out like this for the next hour, at least.”

Curt kisses Arthur again, his lips and tongue light and teasing. “Then what are we waiting for?”  

 


End file.
